Welcome to Gaia! ::

After the encounter with Seb outside the gardens and having to once again enforce to Seb that he could come, Alice was upset. She already had tears in her eyes and she was sniffling. The blonde produced a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. Then she wiped her eyes on the sleeves of "her" hoodie. Sure, it was still plainly obvious she'd been crying because her eyes were rimmed in red, but she did her best to put a happy face on. "Hello Noah, hey Everly," she said, sitting on a bench nearby and trying not to let her sads be apparent. She didn't want them to fuss over her, especially cause they should be making googly eyes at each other. Alice knew about the two of them having a crush on each other and she thought it was entirely adorable. She didn't want to rain on their parade because she was upset. Idly, Alice wondered if Skye was going to fly down to join her. She considered fishing her whistle out to see if she responded to the call... if she could even hear it in the owlery.

Alice was glad that Aina had joined her, since the girl was insistent on staying in the common room most of the time. She smiled at her cousin, then looked up when Charlotte came down to the club with her sister whom Alice recognized from Sorting as Amelia. Charlotte asked if she was okay, but before she could respond, Everly also asked if she was okay. Alice nodded, but she couldn't tell them the real reason why she was upset. She wanted to tell them that she'd had to stop Seb for coming here because of his werewolf-ness, but that was a well guarded secret. Instead, she had to come up with a quick excuse. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just reading a really emotional book and it still kinda has me." That made sense, right? Alice was always reading books and some books could be emotional enough to make someone cry. Plus, it was a well known fact amongst her friends that she was on some strong hormones and that could unbalance anyone... Aina was looking at her because there was a secret part to Charlotte's question that she hadn't yet answered. "Oh, and this is my cousin Aina." The girl is question made a melodramatic huff, then signed a greeting to everyone. "She said it's nice to meet you." Aina playfully elbowed her cousin and the blonde smiled, then wrapped her arms around her.

As soon as she gave her name to the younger Braybrooke sibling, she said that Noah talked about her. Blue eyes glanced over toward Noah, a small grin on her face. "Hopefully nothing too bad," she said with a small laugh. Honestly, she was pretty certain that if Ruth or Becky had been there, they'd immediately call her out for doing the same thing. Vaguely, she wondered just what Noah had said, but figured that was a conversation for later. Amelia sat down with them, then both she and Noah seemed startled to know that Everly had built herself a custom saber. Well... that meant Noah's Halloween gift (that was a weird one!) would be extra well received!

"Sure did! We also built a working BB-8, but his circuits were a little wonky, so I left him at home. But I'll try to bring him after winter hols!" She unsnapped the slightly frayed backpack she usually carried with her, reaching in and grabbing the saber in question. First she handed over a pouch with different colored LED adaptors designed to look like Kyber Crystals. There were two of each color, save purple (which had one in her saber), and green (which was safely in the saber built for Noah). Next out of her bag came the Saber in question.

With a careful toggle of a hidden switch, the lights kicked on, paired with the lasery sound that sabers produced in the films. "Tada! One custom made saber. The Kyber crystals there secretly hide the electronics and LED filters, allowing it to show as different colors. Mine's purple because it's my favorite color. I was working on a light that could toggle through colors, but I couldn't quite get it right." She offered the saber to Amelia first, hoping she'd enjoy it. Plus.... maybe it was a good time to give Noah his? Who knew when it was the best time for gifts anyway?

Aaah the joy of siblings. Poor Noah looked like he was having a software glitch after Amelia said he talked about Everly over the summer. Thankfully, he seemed to overcome the hurdle and said it was 'mostly good'. Everly sent him a grin, eyes sparkling with excitement. If only he knew he wasn't alone in talking about crushes.... but thankfully, neither of Evie's siblings (that were at school) were currently here to throw her under the bus. If Kai had been here, not only would Noah know, but so would the entire rest of the school.

After mentioning the lightsaber she'd built, Everly was excited that both seemed eager to see it. She'd also mentioned one of the little robots she'd been working on, smiling over at the first year when Noah said it was her favorite. "Heck yea! He's Ruth's favorite too. She's my unofficial twin, so I'm trying to build him for her." Sure, he was one of her favorites too, but Everly liked talking about her siblings. While Amelia was studying the lightsaber now in hand, Everly leaned in a bit and pushed out a small compartment.

"See, here's where the crystals go. They're magnetically held in place." With careful fingers, the Ravenclaw popped out the purple crystal, causing the saber to glow a soft white. "Then we pick another, say... green, and just pop it back in place." She grabbed the remaining green crystal and set it in the empty space until a soft "click" sounded from the magnets. Pretty immediately, the saber glowed a bright green hue and Everly closed the compartment. "Ta-da! That's a lightsaber for ya. Not quite how it works in the series, but not bad for the fact that I don't have tech from galaxies far, far away." She laughed softly, hoping that both the Braybrookes (or at least, the ones paying attention!) liked the bit of tech she'd spent so much time building.